NS2_Rigging

The TSA runs a couple of rigging factories due to the massive amount of needed warfare supplies to encounter the Kharaa.Our hard working engineers and scientists assure the success in our long fought battle. Heroes of an thankless duty.its crucial to keep them running, so these facilities are well hidden. Nevertheless we lost contact to our biggest facility.

Soldier! it is on to you, to secure that armory, it is on to you to save our employees and crush the Kharaa once more !

Squart:"NS2_Rigging is an Armory on a moon far off in the Galaxy of Natural Selection. The armory is producing war machine in all aspects, it is mining, melting, producing, store and transporting weapons and buildings as well as vehicles like tanks. So I wanted to try to bring a lot of different impressions in the map setting. One thing I want to have is that everyone is going to understand the map and find his way through it easily, so every room is going to be uniqe and easy to remember, a big thing in that is that every room will have one thing that sticks out to everyone, e.g.: The Generator room wich is just a floor actually . I want to have the player find himself in an enviroment that is realistic, so I want to set up the Way of energie, cables, pipes and vents in a way that its traceable/comprehensible e.g.: the supply unit is going to be a room where Oxygen and water is going to be produced and sent to where its needed. I also want to create new enviroments wich are impressive to look at, where are things to discover and nice too look at but are not necessarily something that you can walk/play on, e.g.: the Tram.Some things I need to look at if its even possible but after I found out how I would like to have a lot of things move like in Doom 3 where a lot of big machines are still working even though no one is there, so that you can see as much as possible (and we are able to map) of the process everything produced in the armory is going through, in combination with that I would like to have those things working when this station is owend by the Marines and to be broken and not working in the background when the Aliens are owning that point of the map.One more thing I try to keep in mind as i map is to follow the systeme of unkown worlds that everything is flexible, like the switch ax.The map will have some open places so flying units can show off , and a lot of spaces to hide for Lerks and cover for Marines.Different and a lot of lightning with shadowed areas is going to force marines to use flashlights more often plus it will give the special feeling to every room.I Still need to find out how to create smoke, lightning etc. for the finishing of the map.With the Time we will create our own and uniqe props as well, but its going to my first time ever creating a prop or texture.

So this is my first try of an NS2_Map and I´m pretty new to mapping at all, but the Generator is my creation and I think its a good start for the map, we startet with the heart of the map and go from there.The only thing I can add for now is: I LOVE THE NS2_Editor I´m addicted to it."

Trainee:"When i started the work on this map i already put like 50 hours in my first attempt ns2_lunacy and i was not convinced that we are going to finish this map at all, due to lack of spark mapping experience, a buggy editor, only a small artset of props and textures. In the beginning we had the idea to create a map together, we have met and discussed the story, the setting and the meaning of our map. first we had no original idea, nothing that isnt already worked on an at some point i got the idea, that we can make a map about the production scene of the TSA in its war against the Kharaa. I was wondering where all the things are produced which are kinda teleported by the commanders. they place a structure somewhere and you have to "build" it, but its kinda misleading to "build" a structure that has just been set and that within a few seconds build fully. i suggested a theme that explains the dimensions of the ns2 universe, that explains where all the needed war supplies are coming from. so we were discussing a facility which produces weapons, buildings and other supplies and teleport it to the needed locations. we also have a mining and melt area to get the needed ore/metal whatever. a laboratory to tweak our productions, in war you have to be up to date, or you get lost.

after we had a rough layout, an idea behind the rooms, behind the map, it was getting fun to work on. i hope that, end the end, our map looks whole, that all fits into our facility we imagined.Squart and i have complete different art mapping styles, so our rooms look different. his rooms are more dirty and dark, mines are clean and brightin some parts its an advantage, because some rooms have to be dark and dirty and some other need to be clean and brightim an old worldcraft / hammer veteran, just as squart, but i always tried to minimize my r_speeds, but squart always wanted to maximize his artwork he has an idea for a room and wants it to be build, he doesnt care much about fps (:P)

i hope with occlusion culling and some tweaking in our map and performance engine side we will have a playable map.i am sure that we finish this map and i hope that its playable "

As unique and interesting as this map looks it seems to be extremely open and rather marine biased, majority of the areas there the rines will see skulks coming a mile away and use them for nothing more than target practice.

well, the tram you see in the last picture wont be accessable. it will be something fancy and nice to look at through windows. there wont be as much long empty corridors as you think. the teleporter room i am working on is quiet open at the moment, but i have some ideas to reduce the marine advantage there. its an issue in that room, but i am sure that balance will find its way

I hate the teleporter room - that will be miserable to play on - but everything else is jaw dropping!

well, i guess you are right. i liked the idea of the room, but its not that cool ingame yet. the teleporter room was my part to work on, actually i already changed some parts in it to be more playable. i think ill change it completely so the open space is not accessable. closed windowed catwalks. lets see if i can make it fun and worth playing

thx for commenting on this issue, now i know that i was right with my concerns

Janos Posted Today, 03:43 AM As unique and interesting as this map looks it seems to be extremely open and rather marine biased, majority of the areas there the rines will see skulks coming a mile away and use them for nothing more than target practice.

I do like the generator though.

Well thanks again for the generator .

As you can see the room is not even half ready, in fact the generator room is the only picture thats close to the final state . but wait until you hear the sound of it + we want to add lightning and stuff to it ... still working on it how to do that.

and the other rooms i only got them on paper, working on it on train rides and stuff because i need to studie besides mapping .

I hope the next picture of the medic room is going to show you the feeling of the room, there is a whole wall missing that is seperating the tram from the medic room.

In 2 weeks we will have much more to show

And before someone asks about the repeating blue light style, other rooms will have other colours of course , eg: Melt is going to be red, the coridor from melt to mining is going to be green. but yeah blue is the main colour because the energie we use in that map is going to have a blue colour.

I still stand by my point of Supports and Girders. "teleporter room" is in dire need of some, but the generator room and hive also need some. It's all work in progress of course, but something to keep in mind as I've seen this happen on more maps using the grate prop extensively, without supports.

Guardian of the "magic cookiejar"

Retired forum Admin, I mostly used a flamethrower tank for disputes... Mostly

Could you give us an example please Kouji_San ... I´m not sure what you mean and i want to do my best to improve the map so everyone is happy

peregrinus Posted Today, 02:08 PM I wouldn't go too overboard with the colour scheme. If each area is a specific colour it will feel too much like a video game map, you won't lose yourself in the environment.

You are right with that its not going to be super mario . I will do realistic colouring but lava is going to shine red ... so Melt is going to have more warm colours like orange, red, yellow, ... and the Floor from Melt to mining was a picture popping to my head 2 days ago in a dream ... so lets see how close i will get, but in that it was green and it looked really cool.

In the end i don´t want the map to look like the game "Dungeons" when you are in overhead.

Also about the layout, I for one am quite interested in how you're going to deal with the two main chokepoints into the main rooms for each team. And let's hope the left side of the map will be used, because with 6 tech_points the map might be too "balanced", without a mandatory drive for the aliens to really push towards marine held tech_points.

ns2_tram has a similar issue, where the right side of the map is barely used. Most of the combat is around the left and center of the map.

sidenote:I'm also hoping UWE will make expansion part of the Marine team tech tree once more instead of turtling in main base, with the only need to push towards tech_points is to deny aliens their tier2 tech and perhaps pressure their RT's. While the aliens have to go to the MS and can only pressure tech by cutting off the resflow (Extractors). They have lost their reliance on the power grid to some extend

side-side note :PI do like the work you've done so far, it has a unique feel to it. Dress it up some more and keep an eye on the things mentioned in the thread and you've got yourself a winner

Guardian of the "magic cookiejar"

Retired forum Admin, I mostly used a flamethrower tank for disputes... Mostly

"...let's hope the left side of the map will be used, because with 6 tech_points the map might be too "balanced", without a mandatory drive for the aliens to really push towards marine held tech_points."

Thats what my worries are/were. But as far as i understood the Layout is designed so the main battle is going to be around the 3 tech points (around the Generator and the 3 units in our case). The left side is set to give the opurtunity for a small group to come from behind if the main way is blocked.But if anyone got an idea on how to perfect that system I´m open for it its not build yet .

My guess is the only way to give the aliens a mandatory drive is to have the mariens lock the doors on the right side, and not give them the possibillities to lock the doors on the left side.

another way might also be to give a certain strategic advantage, eg: aliens have one side more hiding points, can fly more and got sniper points, for marines is one way more open ...dk something like that maybe.

another idea would be to change the layout in the way ... that on the left side instead of 2 TPs and 1 RT ... 1 TP and 2 RTs are ...that might work

"...let's hope the left side of the map will be used, because with 6 tech_points the map might be too "balanced", without a mandatory drive for the aliens to really push towards marine held tech_points."

I think I got an Idea on how to resolve the Problem. I will add one more RT in Storage (so there will be 2 RTs in Storage) wich should give a drive to use the Left side of the map more often .

Ok we have worked plenty of hours again, hope you guys like it. here are some screens of my part of the map. Squard is getting his pics ready soon aswell

its not finished yet, the corridors are empty and the teleporter room has no finished ceiling. ive worked much on the storage room, so please comment on your likes and dislikes

Teleporter room - that catwalk outside the room is not accessable, so dont worry about balance thereThe old Teleporter room with plenty of small catwalks with all that missing girders is deleted. maybe ill use an edited version of the glowing teleporter itself, maybe noti dislike the windows from that hive out to the teleporter. i think ill rework them.[ - 9 - ][ - 10 - ][ - 11 - ]

Really a big fan of how you pay attention to the purpose of the map, and take care to make sure the machinery and technology all fits in and makes sense. The metal paneling in the corridors looks great.

Two small things which only slightly very slightly concern me. The corridors are very open...how can aliens navigate those without being dominated by sentries and marines? And the room with all the mechanical arms, its a huge room with lots of wall surfaces, yet I can't see how aliens will be able to take advantage of that. Perhaps you could make some of the crates stick out so aliens can hop on top of them or have somewhere to get cover? The crate full of rifles looks weird...and isn't it a lot of detail to render? That crate makes no sense to me.

Good point by the corridors, I think we will get them more interesting in adding small places to cover on the side + open spaces in the ceiling with vents or something + some stuff standing in the corridors like crates.

On the storage room we will try to get the ceiling more open with places to hide.

The crate full of rifles was my work ^^. Trainee warned me about the minimalist mappers. I actually didn´t want it to be that open in the room it was more something to have a look at behind a door or something not accessable. It was supposed to be an open crate thats getting filled by the factory until its full and can be transportet. I thought that if you have one prop repedet its counting as one. I think i read this in another thread. But yeah if its not like that we can delet it was just something I played with .

I like the geometry, but I think your lighting is letting you down a bit. Now, I'm no expert on lighting either... in fact it's my weakest area. BUt for some advice, some of your flat surfaces are over-illuminated by one light source, so that it is all one color, such as the green ceiling in your first shot. Try to make sure that all light spots are arriving directly from one light source, in a straight line, and in a way that is proportional to the light that the prop or texture or whatever would realistically disperse. Then, determine if there are any objects whatsoever that interrupt the straight line, if so, people will naturally expect some shadows to be created

Since that was kind of vague: in your first shot, for example, you have light reaching the ceiling. I would add shadows so that the grating above the aqua light in the floor hits the ceiling in a shadow pattern, it will be more aesthetic. Secondly, you have white with no visible source illuminating the whole room, especially the panels in the back. 255 255 255 or white lighting, as psykoman recently pointed out to me, is not very flattering. So maybe consider eliminating that light, or putting a source behind it, in which case it is unlikely to fully illuminate the whole room.

Really a big fan of how you pay attention to the purpose of the map, and take care to make sure the machinery and technology all fits in and makes sense. The metal paneling in the corridors looks great.

Thanks! This is the reason why i enjoy working with this map so much. you see a "why" behind so many things and you get a clear idea of the room, before you have built it.

Two small things which only slightly very slightly concern me. The corridors are very open...how can aliens navigate those without being dominated by sentries and marines? And the room with all the mechanical arms, its a huge room with lots of wall surfaces, yet I can't see how aliens will be able to take advantage of that. Perhaps you could make some of the crates stick out so aliens can hop on top of them or have somewhere to get cover?

The Corridors are quite open, yes. i am going to open some walls, ceilings and the floor for small "vents". i think this map is going to be more like a ns1 map, hope you guys dont mind.

I like the geometry, but I think your lighting is letting you down a bit. Now, I'm no expert on lighting either... in fact it's my weakest area. BUt for some advice, some of your flat surfaces are over-illuminated by one light source, so that it is all one color, such as the green ceiling in your first shot. Try to make sure that all light spots are arriving directly from one light source, in a straight line, and in a way that is proportional to the light that the prop or texture or whatever would realistically disperse. Then, determine if there are any objects whatsoever that interrupt the straight line, if so, people will naturally expect some shadows to be created

Since that was kind of vague: in your first shot, for example, you have light reaching the ceiling. I would add shadows so that the grating above the aqua light in the floor hits the ceiling in a shadow pattern, it will be more aesthetic. Secondly, you have white with no visible source illuminating the whole room, especially the panels in the back. 255 255 255 or white lighting, as psykoman recently pointed out to me, is not very flattering. So maybe consider eliminating that light, or putting a source behind it, in which case it is unlikely to fully illuminate the whole room.

i think with the "first shot" you are refering to squard´s screenshot. we are aware that our lighting in not perfect and will be tweaked all the time. i for myself can say that i am improving regarding lighting, but its still my weakest area too. so thanks for the post! its much appreciated! hope we can upload some lighting tweaked screenies soon! when we have finished the map, we adjust all lighting so the overall fealing will be atmospheric